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"Key escrow does not make you more vulnerable to a 3rd party?" You have got to be kidding me. YES IT FUCKING DOES. Repeat after me: KEY ESCROW IS SHIT. Here's an excerpt from a paper detailing why it is such a bad idea right out of the gate:

In short, eavesdroppers seeking access to the session key must use two keys to decrypt the LEAF: the family key (which is common to all chips) and the chip key (which is different for every chip). Assuming that the family key will be in fairly wide circulation,{194} the security of the Clipper Chip stands or falls on the security of the master list of chip keys. This list, or the two lists of key segments, would be of enormous value to any attacker, such as a foreign government bent on industrial espionage.

This isn't about pollution. It's about the level of CO2 in the atmosphere - which is the primary acceleration factor for global warming.

The key point is this: human beings are dumping additional CO2 into the atmosphere above and beyond that produced naturally by the environment. This has to have an impact, and reduction of human contributions also has to lower or slow the rate of impact.

You can't escape the laws of physics. We have been accelerating the factor of greenhouse warming since the dawn of the industrial era, and therefore decreasing the time we have available to deal with the effects that are already impacting us. We can argue all day about the primary cause of the warming - increased output of the sun, etc...but you can't argue that what we are doing has no effect.

Some examples of related impacts that are accelerating and affecting human populations today:

The number of severe weather events has increased significantly and steadily year over year since the 1950s.

Sea level rise is real, and related subsidence of coastal areas is also real (e.g. Miami Florida, and Norfolk Virginia sea level impacts). Indications are this increase in speed of sea level rise is related to the thinning and breakup of the floating ice in Antarctica that serves to slow the march of land based glaciers into the Southern Ocean. Glaciers there are recorded as dropping 4 meters per year. And, Larsen B is getting ready to break off and form the largest iceberg in recorded history sometime very soon (June/July). A similar speedup of glacial movement and subsidence is also being measured in Greenland as well as other ice sheets around the world.

Water sheds are being impacted all over the world due to loss of glaciers, both in terms of availability of water in the event of drought, and in terms of record levels of melt water flooding - most recently seen in the Oroville California dam overflow and resultant damage to the aging infrastructure, and flooding this year in Peru.

Crops are already being impacted by heat and drought conditions, and some Northern areas are starting to consider using seeds normally reserved for more Southerly climates, while those in the South are looking into modifications to make their plants more hardy in drought stressed conditions.

Permafrost is not only melting more frequently and in larger areas across the world, but is also causing ground subsidence - with massive evidence of this in Siberia.

By doing nothing - we accept that the major human population centers will be faced with existential problems sooner rather than later.

No it isn't. The pipeline is running through private land, not the reservation.

Memorial Day is a good day to learn something new.

http://inter-american-law-revi...

Here's just one: http://med.miami.edu/news/chan...

What ? You think it's possible to say something like that and NOT affect children ?

Your arrogance is astounding.

I live there you idiot.

And yet I can be very kind and pleasant when not dealing with the willfully ignorant. It's after a while that I don't feel the need for patience, and thanks for adding me to the personality attacks, much appreciation for another example of denialists using the last of their weapons. The personality attack. I suspect you are a nice guy despite our disagreement.

On the other hand, here is something for you to deny: http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/blo...

More for you to deny http://www.wri.org/publication...

4 inches since 1996. In an almost sea level area such as Miami. a four inch difference is a lot. The photo of a spring tide flood seems to concur with that. Man, salt water is tough on a person's ride.

Now back to me and my foibles - you want to know why I asked where you lived? Did you know that there are places on Earth where the sea level is dropping? There are places in Scandinavia there isostatic rebound form glacier melt has raised enough new coastal land that there are issues in dealing with who owns the land.

Did you know that the horrid droughts in Australia a few years ago made for a temporary sea level drop?

The world is not a static place, and surprises us all the time.

So if you had noted that you lived in Scandanavia or even Coastal Alaska, I would have concurred, then explained.

By the way, the isostatic rebound will not help Miami or the rest of Florida. Or Louisiana, where they have the added issue of Crustal thinning along with sea level rise.

It's html, you need to use the & escape codes.
Example: &lt; should give <

actually if you read through the presentation that is the second link

http://www6.miami.edu/acfdlab/projects/AIAA2010-1013_slides_pdf.pdf

They have done a bit of modeling already, and it is showing promises. I'd call it a bit more than just a sketch, by bet is that with the funds they could do scale wind tunnel and fluid tests, which is listed as their next steps.

This is correct - Dr. Zha is an Associate Professor at the University of Miami. http://www.mae.miami.edu/people/indextest.php?id=82

Perhaps at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Miami.

If there is not enough demand to make it worthwhile, then maybe not every university needs a CS department? There is not exactly a lot of computer-related industry in Florida.

No the .com domain belongs to the US. .com, .net, .gov, .mil, .edu, .and org are ALL US domains.

I refute this claim.

[.com .org .net .edu .int ] were classified as 'World Wide Generic Domains' while [ .gov .mil .us ] were US-only according to RFC 1591 [^1]

I highly recommend that you read the paper titled "WRONG TURN IN CYBERSPACE: USING ICANN TO ROUTE AROUND THE APA AND THE CONSTITUTION" by A Michael Froomkin. [^2]

In 1998, ICAAN was formed and given management rights of the [ .com .net .org ] TLD's by the USC. In 2000, ICAAN's rights were formally recognized by the DoC and separate (and conflicting) agreements were signed. U.S government retained control of [ .int .edu ] domains and set restrictive polices on both (against the RFC). Please note that ICAAN is required to comply to RFC 1034, 1035 and 1591 [^3][^4]

Today, we no longer have the 'World Wide Generic Domains'. These have been replaced with a different TLD system which specifies Generic Top Level Domains (gTLD) as domains that operate directly under policies established by ICANN processes for the global Internet community. [^5] [ .com .org .net ] are classified as gTLD's and thus are for the global Internet community. [^6]

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/ntiahome/domainname/agreements/summary-factsheet.htm

Nowhere in this factsheet does it say that [ .com ] etc belong to the US. This is simply regarding an agreement transferring management from the U.S government to ICAAN.

I'll see you're source and raise you 6

[^1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1591

[^2] http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann.pdf

[^3] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1034

[^4] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1035

[^5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-level_domain

[^6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain

It was even worse than that on the PDP-10s.... The operating system used both SIXBIT characters and 7-bit ASCII characters using variable-length bit-field instructions (36 bit words => 5 chars and 1 bit left over).

Secondly, there are *many* more offline groups that are more closely related to street gangs in structure and practices than guilds, and no one seems too alarmist about that.

Huh, I didn't get a real feeling of alarmist views from this article but I could not get access to the paper. Was there something in there calling out for the dissolution of such WoW guilds because they resemble gangs/terrorists? I thought the point was that they could better study and predict gangs and terrorist organizations by looking at the formation, nature and qualities of online guilds? If that's so, maybe this isn't such a bad research area and maybe Blizzard and the like should open up certain sets of data?

I was a bit skeptical of the 'terrorist' claims (as I am whenever I hear that word) and it's probably just fishing for VC or funding. But the real place I could see this helping the world is briefly mentioned in the article: Central and South American authorities have localized places that are ruled by gangs. I've heard gang violence in Caracas is epic and it would benefit everyone to stop that from spreading. I've also heard that El Salvadorean gangs are a real problem ... not sure though. From a US Nationalistic perspective, even Mexico would be nice to clean up too so the need-to-build-a-fence xenophobes shut their wordholes.

And does anyone else find it academically strange that this came from a bunch of grad students in Physics?!?!?

Well, that professor runs Complexity and Biological Physics which strives for life sciences applications of physics. Now, it may sound odd but I would imagine physicists are some of the best modelers of complex systems (like atomic and chemical reactions) and honestly might be the best suited for attempting to model actors in a very large system. I don't know, looking at Dr. Johnson's papers, he's all over the road. Either he's a really well diversified physicist or he's seeking for a new field to be a big fish in. I would give him the benefit of the doubt seeing as how he's continually being published (better than most professors).

Secondly, there are *many* more offline groups that are more closely related to street gangs in structure and practices than guilds, and no one seems too alarmist about that.

Huh, I didn't get a real feeling of alarmist views from this article but I could not get access to the paper. Was there something in there calling out for the dissolution of such WoW guilds because they resemble gangs/terrorists? I thought the point was that they could better study and predict gangs and terrorist organizations by looking at the formation, nature and qualities of online guilds? If that's so, maybe this isn't such a bad research area and maybe Blizzard and the like should open up certain sets of data?

I was a bit skeptical of the 'terrorist' claims (as I am whenever I hear that word) and it's probably just fishing for VC or funding. But the real place I could see this helping the world is briefly mentioned in the article: Central and South American authorities have localized places that are ruled by gangs. I've heard gang violence in Caracas is epic and it would benefit everyone to stop that from spreading. I've also heard that El Salvadorean gangs are a real problem ... not sure though. From a US Nationalistic perspective, even Mexico would be nice to clean up too so the need-to-build-a-fence xenophobes shut their wordholes.

And does anyone else find it academically strange that this came from a bunch of grad students in Physics?!?!?

Well, that professor runs Complexity and Biological Physics which strives for life sciences applications of physics. Now, it may sound odd but I would imagine physicists are some of the best modelers of complex systems (like atomic and chemical reactions) and honestly might be the best suited for attempting to model actors in a very large system. I don't know, looking at Dr. Johnson's papers, he's all over the road. Either he's a really well diversified physicist or he's seeking for a new field to be a big fish in. I would give him the benefit of the doubt seeing as how he's continually being published (better than most professors).

IAAL too and I see nothing wrong with Google apps. Don't know about doctors, but lawyers are perfectly aware that nothing is foolproof once you get online, and we realize that some Google employee has access to our stuff. We're expected to maintain confidentiality in a reasonable matter, not approach it with the paranoia of a computer security expert.

IANAL, but with HIPPA its apples and oranges.
I had done some with healthcare companies, and they use encrypted "dropboxes" and email for transferring sensitive files with PII. They rightfully take it seriously, especially since most patients are identified by their SSN.
I an somewhat surprised that attorney/client communication isn't be better protected, it seems sorta quaint.
Just so were on the same page re HIPPA:
http://privacy.med.miami.edu/glossary/xd_hipaa_sanctions.htm
violation penalties (HIPAA)
Per section 1177 of HIPAA, a person who knowingly
* uses a unique health identifier, or causes one to be used;
* obtains individually identifiable health information relating to an individual; or
* discloses individually identifiable health information to another person;
is in violation of HIPAA regulations. Such persons are subject to the following penalties:
* a fine of up to $50,000, or up to 1 year in prison, or both;
* if the offense is committed under false pretenses, a fine of up to $100,000, up to 5 years in prison, or both;
* if the offense is committed with intent to sell, transfer, or use individually identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm, a fine up to $250,000, or up to 10 years in prison, or both.
HIPAA also provide for civil fines to be imposed by the Secretary of DHHS "on any person" who violates a provision of it. The maximum is $100 for each violation, with the total amount not to exceed $25,0000 for all violations of an identical requirement or prohibition during a calendar year.

That's an interesting example. Here's another version of the same image:

Yours:
http://www.impactlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/body-scanners-372.jpg

Original:
http://osaka.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/pic_body02lg.jpg

Now why would they feel the need to photoshop out they guy's junk like that?

There's no such thing as a 'proven alternative treatment'. Once it's proven to work it's not alternative medicine any more, it's just medicine.

If proof == "medicine" and no proof == "alternative treatment", then why is massage or acupressure or dietary changes considered alternative treatment?

I do shiatsu acupressure, and I can cite studies on its effectiveness.

And why is surgery considered "medicine"? Every placebo controlled study of a surgical technique has found it no better than a placebo operation.

Why is giving SSRIs out like candy considered "medicine", when they work no better than a placebo for most categories of patients?

Medicine is an art wherein clinicians apply their skills to relieve the suffering and promote the well-being of each individual patient. Of course a good clinician will consider all available evidence to figure out what's likely to work best, but the goal is not to do what's most effective who most people, but for this single patient. You only get evidence of that via treatment.

I know that some of what I - or any clinician, from bodyworkers to brain surgeons - do is the placebo effect. So what?

That is part of why I doubt it, especially since we are talking about mammals & not amphibians, so they don't have "equivelant" stages

Way off. Embryology is very heavily conserved, such that while there are clear differences, there are also clear similarities. An egg gets fertilized to make a one cell stage, cell division makes a hollow space called the blastula stage, the part that becomes the embryo is one cell layer thick. A pocket forms that becomes the gut, that's the gastrula stage. The part of the embryo that becomes the central nervous system makes a tube, that's the neurula stage.

After that point, things start to diverge more, but up until that point the two do have the same stages.

Here are some pictures of blastulas.

http://www.bootstrike.com/Genetics/StemCells/images/human_blastocyst.jpg

http://porpax.bio.miami.edu/~cmallery/150/devel/human_blastula_removed.gif

http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/PDS/PDS139/microscopic-image-frog_~AA003891.jpg

http://abacus.bates.edu/~ganderso/biology/electron/frog_blastula_composite_image_x350.gif

As you can see, quite similar. There are certainly equivalent stages.

Here's a wiki page on "embryo" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo) Notice it says just "animals," many places and doesn't specify which species? It's not laziness.

Maybe you should take his class?

Nashville's recording industry is not the one of the reasons the University would "Patrol for Copyright Violations". The Universities in this state were probably begging the Law makers for this so they could justify using draconian measures. The reasons University's are doing this is because they want to enforce there Intellectual Copyrights. If they were to have a court case involving Intellectual Copyright and one of the lawyers from other side said well the University doesn't enforce music copyrights. I would imagine the the university would look kind of bad, maybe even lose the case. Tell me of a University that you have visited lately that doesn't have signs up telling you about how copying is bad and illegal. There very big on this at the moment even the lecturers are infected. Sad thing is a lot of discoveries in the past have been where researchers have shared there work and there was no concept of Intellectual Copyright. a good example is the research into DNA http://porpax.bio.miami.edu/~cmallery/150/gene/DNAdiscovery.htm

Swart, P.K. Global Synchronous Changes in the Carbon Isotopic Composition of Carbonate Sediments Unrelated to Changes in the Global Carbon Cycle, Proc Nat. Acad. Sci. 37, 13741-13745.

Note that the paper is only about carbon dating of shelf sediments, *not* fossils.

But yes, me too. The image of gear-driven designs battling to finish difficult problems first was entirely charming, and increased my admiration for Aussie quirk & gumption quite a bit.

But no, this is Automated Theorem Proving, runing on some LinTel boxes. A pox on the submitter and editor, though not of course the entirely respectable CADE organizers.

And as if they needed more proof of geek cred, that has to be one of the worst t-shirt designs ever. Well done lads.
http://www.cs.miami.edu/~tptp/CASC/J4/T-shirtGIF.html

It's a competition where automated theorem provers for 1st order logic are given a subset of a problem library.

I don't think any of the provers are using genetic algorithms, since they're suited for optimization, not deduction.

It's a competition where automated theorem provers for 1st order logic are given a subset of a problem library.

I don't think any of the provers are using genetic algorithms, since they're suited for optimization, not deduction.

It's actually worse than that, because one of the satellites is currently unusable. Here's the daily connectivity schedule.

I swear to god I'm going to take a claw hammer to the next person who repeats that myth.

For the thousandth fucking time, that bill only applies to non-citizens!

Or anyone who is determined to be an enemy combatant. And the rules for being declared an enemy combatant is that the president says you are. So yes, it DOES apply to every single person, since anyone at any time can be declared an enemy combatant for any reason.

http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~cmallery/150/neuro/belgi an.blue.jpg

You can do a google image search for "Belgian Blue." These cattle have some sort of crazy genetic quirk that makes them grow muscles like mad. And trust me, you do NOT want to see them when they're angry.

It's not just the chickens that are developing superpowers. This breed is clearly the start of some sort of Bovine X-Men. Throw in flying squirrels, bat sonar, electric eels, chameleons, shape-and-color changing squid, etc... and you'll quickly realize we don't have long before today's modern superanimals will rise up and destroy us.

Yeah, it's those same people who insist that poverty still exists in the U.S. and that the holocaust happened. Damn liberals even say that improving our energy efficiency while reducing greenhouse gasses will improve our economy. We all know that God controls the climate directly and that the rest of those things are liberal lies.

The world can take a lot more than we small humans are dishing out to it. The oceans alone can absorb 100 times more CO2 than we have ever pumped into the atmosphere without taking a blink. This is just more proof of nature's resilience. Don't bow to the environmentalist hype machine.

Yeah, who cares if the increasing oceanic acidity due to the absorbed CO2 prevents organisms from building the shells that would allow the CO2 to be deposited in ocean sediments. Just imagine water from your local reservoir being pre-carbonated. It'll be nice to have a cool fizzy beverage on the hot days to come.

Very late reply, I'm AC above. Just did some very quick research:
Because of the rapid advection of the North Atlantic gyre, the temperature of the surface waters of the NADC almost always exceeds that of both surrounding waters and the overlying atmosphere (Rossby, 1996). From here?

So it looks like the NAD at least keeps the ocean/sea warmer all year, however as you say the land is warmer than the ocean most of the summer. So it will just reduce the moderating cooling effect of the ocean, whether you count that as a warming or not I don't know as it's warmer than it would be without it?!

That only works if he can read.

I think that's an open question.

This suggests he can't, but this suggests he can.

My guess is the second example is a fake, so rumours of his ability to read are probably exaggerated.

>Legal urban legends. Most of the stories you hear are lies perpetuated by those with an interest in doing so.

Whoa! Just because legal urban legends exist doesn't mean the malpractice litigation system isn't broken.

If you're a practicing OB/GYN (a physician specializing in births and women's care) in Miami, FL, do you know how much you paid last year, just for required insurance in case something goes wrong? If you're an average doc, you paid $277,000. FOR ONE YEAR. If you lived in Chicago, you paid $230,000. In Detroit, you paid $194,000.

Now, do you suppose the physician just eats the extra cost, or do you suppose it gets passed on to the consumer (like every other business does with extra costs)?

Here's another thing. The states with the lowest malpractice premiums have the lowest rate of malpractice suits and also lower average awards in those suits. OB/GYNs in Oklahoma, for example, typically pay $17,000 a year.

Here's a good article to start reading up on how much insurance costs and lawsuits really are driving up the costs of medicine.

The PDF link seems to be dead, but the HTML link still works:
http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/p rivacy-deathof.htm

Rather than being afraid of "scary things yet to come", if that has an overtone of "don't panic"..., have a look at this excerpt from a scholarly article (and that's by a Professor of Law) on what was known the technology could do more than half a decade ago already: Froomkin, The Death of Privacy, p. 1499-1501 (p. 39-41 of the PDF).

Resolution 1 millimeter even back then, with drastic explanations of what that means.

Now... panic!

pcHDTV 3000 from here

Air2PC from here or here

2. When you're ready, build a computer for MythTV. Use this guide, look here for HDTV tips, and ask questions on this mailing list. You can also search for answers on the mailing list archive.

3. You say that Myth isn't all you want. I think you're wrong. Here's what it can do:

It can record analog content from cable, satellite, and over-the-air broadcasts.

It can record digital content from over-the-air broadcasts, including HDTV.

It can record unencrypted digital content over firewire from some digital cable boxes.

Using free tools that come with MythTV, you can cut commercials and export any recording from MythTV to a number of different formats, including Divx, Xvid, VCD, SVCD, and DVD.

4. Here's what it can't do:

Myth can't record encrypted digital content from digital cable or digital satellite. Keep in mind that no PC-based solution can do this. The only possible ways to do record content from these sources in digital format are to use a black-box solution (usually) provided by the cable or satellite company or to put on your black hacker hat and crack the encryption. If you choose the former, odds are slim and none that you will be able to export the recordings.

Tab 1 + Tab 2

There's my weatherbug. Honestly, what does weatherbug have to offer that a simple bookmark in mozilla doesn't, besides another potential problem for your computer?

The movie is really clever in how it visually references other films. Particullary good was a portion of the film which is a shot-by-shot remake of the Rocket bike chase in Return of the Jedi. It also spoofs You Only Live Twice in some really humorous ways too. In short, good movie for film nerds.

From their site:
A glycoprotein, Fel d 1, secreted by the sebaceous glands, is the major cat allergen. This allergen is found in the fur, pelt, saliva, serum, urine, mucous, salivary glands, and hair roots of the cat.

Allerca cats will only lack one of the potential cat allergens... potentially deadly for people allergic to other proteins secreted by the cats. In addition, the gene silencing technique (I assume they refer to RNAi perhaps using siRNAs) cannot be guaranteed 100% effective--all it takes is one mutation.... More info about RNAi here and here.

However, as someone with moderately severe cat allergies, this is definitely a start.

Here's a link to the script, can you find where it says that? I sure don't remember Chewie getting a visa to stay on Endor at the end.

Endor was supposed to have been the planet of the Wookies. But good ol' master of great ideas, George Lucas, changed it to the Planet of the Care Bears.

I got as many as possible without trading (129? Something like that). I also recorded about 20 sheets of data trying to reverse engingeer the level up process (only to find that it had been done on the net a year or so earlier). And...I did write a 10 page paper or so (on various topics of the cultural phenomenon that was Pokemon; it got quite a good mark too). Though, granted, that was third year, so the quality of the paper was considerably lower than academic, and I only had 6 Honours courses to keep up with (admitably lower than the load of a professor). On the flip side, this was all done in a much shorter timeframe than your average academic paper.

In short, easily doable, and that's if you even think catching 150 yourself is somehow required to write a paper on Pokemon (*coughAzureHeightscough*).

When I first began playing at age 11, I didn't think I'd hear that phrase either, much less from myself.

Pokemon is a mathematically complex game and, thanks to some of these "older, serious players" who have even less of a life than I do, anybody can understand the inner workings of any Pokemon game with a year or two of Algebra and a little work with probability and Hex.

That mathematical complexity and availbility makes it appeal strongly to many "nerds." It's also a veritable treasure trove of cute characters, annoying puzzles, and cheesy plot and dialogue. What's not to love?

Seriously, though, if you want to know about "older, serious players" of the game. just check out Azure Heights or my old stomping grounds, Pokemon UK. There are others, of course, but I don't remember the URL to the ones that were any good.

Unfortunately, the 'selection' process of the record companies doesn't really help that problem, since they select more on sex appeal

I know! I keep wondering why no one's offered me a record deal.

First thing that came into my mind: Richard Feynman

Sure. Some links below, found on google. I'd show you my textbook, if I could :)

http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Science/extinc tion.html

http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BIO48/38.Extinctio n.HTML

http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/courses/EEB105/lec tures/extinction/extinction.html

http://fig.cox.miami.edu/Faculty/Tom/bil160sp98/10 _notes.html

Simon

Yeah, I think the original board of ICANN said something similar. We all know how that turned out.

The music at the end is the opening few bars of the SugarHill Gang's Rappers Delight.

Don.

-------
You have the right to remain silent yadda yadda yadda.

Your case seems awfully hypothetical. Let's go with something more concrete. Your web site, Marotti.com, is vulnerable to this exploit and has been for weeks. All someone who doesn't like you would have to do is just download the exploit and request the appropriate URL, and all your passwords would be overwritten. I mean ANYBODY who reads packetstorm could have done this to you for weeks.

Don't be silly. Full disclosure is part of the process.

"Moving to a popular system doesn't do squat for the rural farmers in Montana, any more than the current system does."

"Any sophisticated theory of the postmodern ought to bear something of the same relationship to Horkheimer and Adorno's old 'Culture Industry' concept as MTV or fractal ads bear to fifties television series."

If you don't know what this means, it's because your brain evolved to reject drivel. To be perfectly honest, I hope this is a hoax. Wouldn't be the first time.

But then, with postmodernism, you can't really tell the hoaxes from the honest nonsense.

Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker noted some time ago that the message of postmodern work is almost always trivial (like "violence is bad"), but couched in the most inscrutable and/or eye-catching terms (like "search for an interpretive skein within that overburdened word 'violence'" or "violence as style"). How about this one, from the paper: "Without a grand narrative, there will no be one common way to program, or even one common kind of interface between programs." More than one way to program? Sign me up for a grand narrative, post-haste!

I thought Slashdot was immune to this kind of idiocy. (Well...no, I didn't, but I can dream, can't I?)

>so do you have any links on this or any other refrences you can give us?

Here's one.

You can die by water poisoning (many litres), sugar poisoning (3 quarts), salt poisoning (1 quart), and all sorts of normally nice stuff for your body.

If you take too much of anything it can be dangerous, so the Nurse's credo is "The Dose Makes the Poison".

Nothing says "a mad scientist lives here" quite like having one of these running.

~Philly

What happens is that the air is broken down TO PLASMA between the wires so that it conducts electricity, just like lightning 8-D. The spark then convects upwards due to the very hot air. After it's shot off, air is broken down at the bottom again, and another spark is started.

The best photos are probably HERE, but they're yellow sparks (i think that's to do with the gas) which isn't in my opinion as cool as brilliant blue ones :). TechTV also has a page on it and a cool-ish video if you can view asx files. Their JL is pretty weak though, because it stops before the spark "falls off" the end - meaning the wires are too far apart for the voltage to be that small to be able to turn the air in between into plasma.